Many consumers of absorbent articles associate the thickness of an absorbent article with the storage capacity of the absorbent article. Thus, designers of absorbent articles desire to create absorbent articles that are thick enough such that the consumers recognize that the absorbent article has enough storage capacity to protect the wearer of the absorbent article. Thicker absorbent articles tend to require more raw materials to form the absorbent article and the costs of raw material are a significant component of the cost to the supply side of the market. Thus, the cost to consumers of thicker absorbent articles can be more for some thicker absorbent articles than for some thinner absorbent articles.
From a technical perspective, improvements in material performance and the development of new materials have led to thinner absorbent articles that tend to be as effective, and in many cases, more effective, as previous generations of thicker absorbent articles. Nevertheless, some consumers may still believe that thicker absorbent articles might perform better than thinner absorbent articles. To serve these consumers, designers desire to create thicker absorbent articles while still keeping raw material costs low enough such that the absorbent articles are affordable to consumers. Increasing the thickness of absorbent articles may not be a desirable means to serve these consumers because the increase in the mass of raw materials in an absorbent article is likely to increase the cost of the absorbent article to the consumer. Thus, the consumer is left in an undesirable position of having to compromise her beliefs in how a particular absorbent article will perform with her desire to save money.
With these limitations in mind, there is a continuing unaddressed need for absorbent articles that appear to be thick enough to consumers so as to inspire confidence within the consumer that the absorbent article will deliver excellent performance without increasing the raw material costs of the absorbent article so as to make the absorbent article affordable to the consumer.